Moderate coffee drinking is linked to lower, not higher, risk of death and several diseases.
What the evidence shows
Coffee was long viewed with suspicion — blamed for heart problems and even listed as a possible carcinogen. Much of that fear came from early studies that failed to separate coffee from smoking, since smokers drank more coffee.
An umbrella review of over 200 meta-analyses (Poole et al., 2017) found that moderate coffee consumption (around three to four cups a day) was associated with lower all-cause mortality, lower cardiovascular death, and reduced risk of several conditions including type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, and some liver and cancers — with harm largely confined to pregnancy (linked to low birth weight) and fracture risk in women. These are associations, not proof of cause, but the overall pattern is reassuring. The blanket claim that coffee is bad for you is refuted for most adults.
Sources
Poole, R., Kennedy, O. J., Roderick, P., et al. (2017). Coffee consumption and health: Umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes.
BMJ, 359, j5024
Moderate coffee intake was associated with lower mortality and reduced risk of several diseases; harms were largely limited to pregnancy and women's fracture risk.
DOI: 10.1136/bmj.j5024 →